Sustainable orchestration of vRANs, UAVs and surfaces for 6G
Network virtualization is one of the most promising approaches to improve mobile network performance and efficiency; so much so that it is already employed in functions associated with the network edge: virtualization of the radio access network (vRAN). But virtualization alone cannot optimize sustainability in all envisioned B5G network deployment scenarios. To improve sustainability, the coordinated project also addresses the integration of two recent technologies to efficiently improve and extend network coverage: Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) and Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles (UAV).
RIS provide the ability to configure their electromagnetic responses, allowing a greater degree of freedom for capacity improvements and energy savings, provided they can be orchestrated in a timely manner. UAVs, on the other hand, can provide temporary or permanent coverage to certain areas at a much lower cost than a traditional deployment. The integration of RIS and UAVs opens up new opportunities to improve coverage and reduce energy consumption.
This project addresses the design of a sustainable extended edge for B5G networks, composed of vRANs, RIS and UAVs. It pursues the development of the necessary mechanisms to optimize the operation of virtualized Base Stations (vBS), designing a control plane to support RIS configuration and introducing newly designed UAVs into the overall network orchestration, all taking into account the end user's quality of experience (QoE).
PABLO SERRANO YÁÑEZ-MINGOT
University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M)
Pablo Serrano has been a full professor in the Department of Telematics Engineering at UC3M since 2002.
He has done research stays at the Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin, Univ. of Rome Tor Vergata, and Telefónica I+D Barcelona.
He has participated in several research projects (national and European), acting as Principal Investigator of the following project Hexa-X, the H2020 project Flex5Gware and the regional project Tigre5-CM. His research interests are in wireless network analysis and the design of network protocols and systems.
Subprojects
SORUS-RAN
Thanks to virtualization, base stations (BSs) can become software stacks that can be deployed on various platforms, such as commodity servers, small embedded devices or mobile nodes. Thanks to this paradigm shift, networks will be able to provide greater flexibility in their performance, network densification will be more efficient, and there will be a reduction in resource consumption.
SORUS-RIS
RIS provide the ability to configure their electromagnetic responses, allowing a greater degree of freedom to improve capacity and save energy, provided they can be configured (orchestrated) in sufficiently low times to allow for system improvement.
SORUS-DRONES
Network deployment with Unmanned Autonomous Unmanned Vehicles (UAVs). UAVs can provide temporary or permanent coverage to certain areas at a much lower deployment cost than a traditional deployment. The integration of RIS and UAVs opens up new opportunities to improve coverage and reduce energy consumption.
